<\/a>Big vacuum manifold <\/div>
For alternately pumping out the vacuum vessel, and purging with dry nitrogen<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Testing windows <\/div>
On top of the cryostat. The windows are quite thin, so we check frequently to see how they're holding up<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Turbo pump <\/div>
The collection of vacuum equipment in front of Lloro grows<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Leak testing <\/div>
We reach low enough pressures to start searching for any leaks. In the leak checker manifold first<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Bemco debugging <\/div>
You know things are going "well" when the oscilloscope comes out<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Gyro box <\/div>
Inside the box of gyroscopes, which caused a lot of problems (though the main problem was us being tired and confused)<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Sho sorts sun shield spars <\/div>
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<\/a>The gondola frame <\/div>
Was fully assembled over in the east highbay<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Jared assembles and tests the TRPNS <\/div>
Our main polarization calibration device<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Bunny suit gensturing <\/div>
Who's inside?<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>The cat <\/div>
Discovered one day that climbing up on the cars can stop people form leaving<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Elle and Suren take a break <\/div>
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<\/a>More TRPNS assembley <\/div>
("Thermal Rotating Polarized Near-field Source")<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>And its finished state <\/div>
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<\/a>Cryo\/vacuum gear to test <\/div>
Before we can start filling with liquid nitrogen<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>One of the two leak checkers stopped cooperating <\/div>
So Simon and Suren peek inside<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Extra thick vacuum window <\/div>
To help protect the new flight window we installed this run<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Big Pumpin' <\/div>
We reach low enough pressure to install our more powerful turbo pump<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Final state for Bemco run 2 <\/div>
For thermal\/vacuum testing of all the gondola motors and pointing sensors<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Oops! <\/div>
The "empty" box that I'd stacked star tracker components on top of had bubble wrap inside. Which inflated and toppled things in vacuum.<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Installing the new flight hard drives <\/div>
Now that they've survived two runs of thermal\/vac testing<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Flight computer modifications <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Empty Bemco <\/div>
As we finish cleaning up the space<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Reaction wheel assembly <\/div>
Can proceed now that the reaction wheel motor, at the center of the gondola frame, has been freed from the Bemco<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Early shift <\/div>
Sunrise and the moon, as a few of us arrive early to prepare the first liquid nitrogen fill<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>The launch pad <\/div>
And surrounding, recently mowed fields<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>First liquid nitrogen fill! <\/div>
As Suren, Corwin, and Elle start cooling Lloro down<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Reaction wheel motor installation <\/div>
Takes a bit of wrestling to align<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Installing the spokes and weights <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Leveling the reaction wheel <\/div>
With the digital protractor<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>The unicorn <\/div>
Arrived mysteriously one night last week. Does it know what's coming?<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>![\"Looking](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52157964595_3402e582dc_n.jpg\")
Yesterday was a double-occasion: Suren’s birthday, and the first time that we filled the cryostat with liquid nitrogen. To celebrate, and to appease the temperamental cryogenic gods, we performed the ritual sacrifice of a unicorn (pinata). The liquid nitrogen is used to pre-cool everything before we switch to the even colder liquid helium. In the week leading up to this point, we had to test for leaks in our vacuum vessel (and had no leaks!), pump it out to thermally isolate the different temperature stages, and test all of our cryogenic gear. Outside of cryostat progress, we also completed the second run of the Bemco thermal\/vacuum test chamber, built the gondola frame that will carry everything in flight, and started testing some of our calibration equipment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6585,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584\/revisions\/6585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}